Golden Hope Mines Expands Gold Discovery with 6 Kilometer Step-out

I first wrote about Golden Hope back in 2008 when the company was trading at around $0.12. At the time, I wasn't overly excited about the project, because it just didn't seem to have too much potential in a deteriorating market where investment banks had all but rolled up the carpets and sold the furniture. My subscribers who were paying attention then would now be up over 700% on that investment.

Now I've practically begged company president Frank Candido to engage me as an I.R. consultant because I truly believe that the size potential of this still under-the-radar company has gone ballistic. And as you read on, you'll find that there are many in the industry who agree.

I visited the project on Friday, June 17, 2010, and that visit confirmed what I already suspected. Specifically, that the gold mineralized quartz system that underlies a 20 kilometer stretch of the beautiful and pastoral Bellechasse region of southern Quebec is prolific and (so far) continuous. The potential of this deposit is truly enormous, in my perhaps not so mumble opinion.

Exploration Excellence
I've been around a few exploration programs in my day, and so have what I consider to be a very good eye for organization in such an environment. I'm pleased to report that the entire process and facilities overseen by exploration team leaders Dany Boilard and Paul Nicholls, bear all of the hallmarks of industry best practices. Sample bags, core, grab samples, and pulps are meticulously catalogued and organized – a crucial protocol for understanding the invisible geology beneath one's feet. Interpreting drill core and extrapolating gold distribution figures is a fine art, and Chief Geologist James Tilsley has developed expertise in the craft that is universally acknowledged and respected among mineral scientists.

But while protocol and procedure are very important, it's the data that are of primary concern to investors. Golden Hope's programs have thus far proven successful in terms of proving up mineralization over a vast area.

It's an odd approach, but Jim Tilsley's instructions to his team of geologists and technicians have thus far worked in direct opposition to the essence of the orders.

"My team is tasked with killing this deposit," he says. "I want them to shoot holes in the theory that this is one big district scale potential. I want them to wreck the premise that we are dealing with a newly identified gold belt. So far, they've done a lousy job."

What he means is the more his team tries to come up with data strategies and analysis that might call into serious doubt such theories, he's finding that in every new piece of evidence gathered only strengthens the concept.

Interestingly, the nature of the project's mineralization makes results from drilling less reliable than bulk sampling, and so the company has devoted more time to bulk sampling.

According to the company's press release of June 17 this year:

"Diamond drill cores give good geological data, but their small size (approximately 5kg/metre) severely limits their ability to provide robust grade estimators for the breccia zones. Assays of diamond drill cores from the Bellechasse-Timmins zones tend to underestimate the true gold concentration. This is illustrated by comparison of assays of drill cores taken a short distance below surface with assays of bulk samples blasted from immediately overlying trenches. Consequently, for exploration purposes, quartz-bearing zones that show values greater than approximately 100ppb are considered mineralized and warrant further attention."

Bulk Sampling Results
So what has the bulk sampling program proven? Well, for one, its showing that gold values from surface across all trench sites suggest the accessibility of the ore body and ease of initial exploitation should continuing exploration unequivocally demonstrate the economic viability of the zone.

This main zone, Timmins 1 as it is referred to by the company, sits on land that the company already owns, and so it was of course the logical site to start with the bulk testing.

The Bellechasse-Timmins deposit includes the previously known Ascot, T1 and T2A and T2B zones with at least eight more parallel quartz-filled gold-bearing brecciate zones in diorite intersected in drill holes, exposed at surface, or both. The area explored to date is slightly more than 600m wide. Mineralization has been traced by diamond drilling from the southwestern outcrop of the T1 Zone approximately 900m to the northeast on the extension of the Ascot Zone and remains open both to the northeast and to the southwest.

The T1 zone is exposed on surface for about 100m and measures up to 50m across strike. The deepest diamond drill intersection is 300m below surface and shows mineralization identical to that bulk sampled at surface.

The T2A and T2b zones are up to ~30m wide, have been followed for ~300m along strike and intersected by diamond drilling as much as 250m below surface.

The T1 zone is estimated to give 11,000 tonnes per vertical metre and the T2A and T2B zones together account for ~8,000 tonnes per vertical metre.

Diamond drilling is adding to the number of new zones. T1-type, T2-type, and Ascot-type bodies are indicated, and will be defined as the drilling program progresses.

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